


Mutually Assured Destruction

by Britpacker



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: F/M, Post Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-17
Updated: 2014-04-17
Packaged: 2018-01-19 18:33:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,895
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1479805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Britpacker/pseuds/Britpacker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Queen and the Cardinal. Deadly enemies each with the power to destroy the other.  It's about time one of them realised that...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mutually Assured Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> The man in the iron mask. Not an older twin of Louis XIV but the illegitimate son of a French Queen and her Musketeer lover, I wonder? Richelieu might have ended the series down, but with a certain suspicion planted in his head I doubt he’d really be out! Inevitably a bit spoilery for the end of the series

She hurried alone through the grand hallways, her jewelled skirts whispering against the marble floor, so intent on her destination that his soft voice seemed to float from nowhere. “Your Majesty.”

He always had been a creature of the shadows, and if he was anxious to be facing her he hid it well. His bow was as elegant, and as restrained, as ever; his expression entirely neutral. And while her heart rate might stutter with dread at the sight of him she was a Daughter of Spain and a Queen of France. She could match him, especially now.

He had always mistrusted her influence. Now – now he must live in terror of his Queen’s displeasure.

Anne inclined her head, the thought making her confidence soar despite the terror this man must instil. “Your Eminence,” she said coldly.

“I’ve been waiting for a moment to congratulate Your Majesty on your… very fortunate condition,” he drawled, icy grey eyes dropping momentarily to her belly. Instinctively she clasped her hands in front of it, as if she could protect the new life within from the malice in that frosty stare.

“The King’s delight is boundless,” Richelieu continued easily, falling into step beside her as she approached the chapel door. Her fingers froze around the handle, gripped by the same chill that spread through her stomach. Jerking back her head, Anne did what she had tried hard to avoid since the depth of his enmity had been made plain. 

She looked him in the eye.

Few people ever dared do that; particularly, she remembered too late, people with secrets of their own to keep. Crystal clear and piercing, those silvery orbs were truly windows into the soul: or at least, since she wasn’t wholly sure His Eminence possessed one, into the calculating intelligence that even his greatest enemies knew guided the Cardinal’s every deadly move.

Triumph gleamed there, all the exultation his narrow, carefully-schooled features refused to show. _Can he know?_

How, she couldn’t tell. Perhaps her tormented conscience, coupled with the knowledge that this man had spies throughout the kingdom, played tricks on her. Still, she could feel the blood draining from her body and she staggered, light-headed, onto his oh-so-gallantly offered supporting arm. “I trust Your Majesty is not _unwell_?” he purred, guiding her to a pew close to the altar itself and making do with the most perfunctory genuflection toward it. “Perhaps I should send for the doctors, if you were to be taken ill at such a delicate moment…”

“I am quite well. Thank you.” Perhaps she could brazen it out. He dared not press her too far – not with the certain knowledge she could destroy him with a single well-placed word.

“I'm glad to hear it.” Oh he could lie impressively she knew, and yet still the fear crept coldly through her system, eroding the confidence she yearned to feel. For a man in danger the Cardinal appeared almost playful.

_Like a cat with a mouse._

“After all, the father of Your Majesty’s child would be _most_ distressed.”

Her head lolled. Her rosebud mouth fell open, a livid pink blot in the deathly pallor of her heart-shaped face. And for the first time in much too long, Armand Jean du Plessis de Richelieu felt the brush of Divine approval across his furrowed brow.

“Come now, Madame. Your _preference_ has been obvious for some time,” he cooed, a prickle of satisfaction running the length of his spine when she cringed from him. “And I suppose under the circumstances…”

The trap yawned before her and Anne tumbled straight into it. “Circumstances of Your Eminence’s creation!” she exclaimed.

“Your reputation would have stood higher as a martyred queen than an adulterous traitor, I think.”

The very directness of the words shocked more than the open acknowledgement of his guilt ever had. That he hated her – feared her potential influence – she had understood from the first moment of her marriage to his master. 

That he would wield this ultimate weapon against her… well, she had handed it to him; she had no right to be surprised. Anne drew in a deep breath and met his challenging gaze directly, a curious sense of calm settling as heavy as the great mantle she had worn at her coronation around her shoulders.

He dared not deploy it. Any more than she, now, could risk exposing him.

Perhaps, she thought grimly, that was her surest defence against his ill-will. Where he saw a weakness, Richelieu would attack without hesitation. Confronted by an enemy who knew his, even he must stay his hand.

“Can you be certain, Cardinal?” she asked, pleased by the steadiness of the words.

“Of the child’s paternity? No more than Your Majesty can be. But I can doubt, as you do.”

She hated him! She despised his arrogance; his vengeful delight in her discomfort. Yet she was helpless.

“What,” she said, “does Your Eminence intent to do with these… suspicions? The King won’t believe it.”

“Will he not?” One steel-grey brow arched and her fingers twitched with the urge to tear it from his face. “With the legitimate succession to the crown at stake you don’t think he would ask you, on the relics of his royal ancestor Saint Louis himself, to swear Your Highness has never defiled the marital bed? The cuckold’s horns would sit ill on that proud head, Madame, and there’ll be many who’ll suspect a Musketeer plot should your… dalliance become known.”

The chapel was always cold – an environment that suited this most unlikely priest, she had always believed – but at the naked threat she felt the air freeze against her cheek. “Plot?” she croaked.

“Why, to plant a bastard of the regiment in direct line of succession.” He ought to have known immediately Richelieu chided himself; her heart was affected, and the surest way to control a lovelorn woman was to threaten the object of her affections. “I’m sure no one would imagine that Captain Treville could endorse such a monstrous scheme of course, but Athos? Porthos? The devoted d’Artagnan? Surely they must be privy to their friend’s misdemeanours! One word – one hint – and the regiment will be ruined along with the good name of the Queen of France herself. And we can’t allow that to happen, can we?”

She sucked in a breath and forced herself to be bold; had he not shown attack to be the strongest form of defence? “Those same men are aware of the plot against my life, Cardinal. If they were to let a word slip of where it emanated…”

“The word of traitors? Against a cardinal and first minister who has served the King so faithfully?”

“Aramis is no traitor!”

“You don’t deny he’s a fool.”

He watched her teeth, small and sharp, cut into the succulent flesh of her lower lip. “As am I,” she whispered. 

He pointedly did not disagree, already weighing his final thrust; not for nothing had he been intended for the army those many years ago, before Alphonse’s foolish insistence on the solitude of the cloister above the bishop’s mitre had changed the younger du Plessis’s course. “Do you imagine for a moment I would act in such a matter without the highest authority in the kingdom?” he hissed, leaning closer for the satisfaction of seeing her eyes grow wide and her fine white bosom begin to heave. 

“The King would never…”

“You, Cardinal, are not married to a woman who recoils from your touch! Oh, better if Anne were dead!” he quoted, his rich, gravelled voice lifting into a fair impersonation of Louis’ fluting lilt. “Charlotte Mellendorf _understands_ me! Perhaps when the deed was done he repented – he was hardly alone! – but the words were spoken and he doesn’t forget them. Were he ever given cause to doubt Your Majesty’s fidelity…”

She ached to deny it; to insist her loving fool Louis would never say such a thing. Yet as her throat tightened and tears burned the back of her eyes Anne knew without a moment’s doubt he could, and had. A careless word, perhaps; a moment’s unbounded petulance. An open invitation to a bold and ruthless man.

“It would seem, Your Majesty, that we need each other.” Seizing his advantage Richelieu forced it home, leaning back and regarding her with the unblinking stare of a large black cat. 

Heavy. Everything felt so heavy, a match for the leaden skies beyond the palace. “I suppose we do,” she muttered, hating the tears that spilled onto her cheeks. “The child…”

“Best pray for a daughter.” That problem at least he had several months still to resolve, and for that Richelieu was devoutly thankful. Anne dipped her brown head in submission, just restraining her wince at the lightest touch of his palm against her hair, a malicious benediction. “Should the child be male…”

She needed his help.

The realisation was enough to turn her stomach, making an answer impossible. Keeping her head down Anne waited for the whisper and rustle of cloth, the squeak of well worn leather and the subtle kiss of disturbed air against her face as he rose. “There will be no bastard on the throne of France, Madame,” he growled, words she accepted for the warning he dared not state direct. 

“No.” Her own security, she knew, would not permit it. If this child were male – that boy all France had looked for since her arrival in the country – she could not raise him.

For the smallest of moments she thought there was a softening in her most implacable enemy’s hawkish features. Pure imagination of course: the man must glory in his triumph, knowing that a move against him would bring down both herself and the entire Regiment of Musketeers. 

“We will arrange matters, and no; the child will not be harmed on my instruction.” There was, he supposed, the remotest chance the brat might be the rightful heir; the King had been known occasionally to attend his wife’s bed, however he grumbled about his welcome the next morning. 

When she raised dewy eyes to him and whispered a tremulous word of thanks he found himself doubting again where the guilt for that lay. By Habsburg standards the girl was a beauty; Louis was little more than an oversized child. 

With a curt bow he withdrew, leaving her to ponder and – no doubt as sister to His Most Catholic Majesty of Spain – to pray. Little, he thought grimly, that would avail her! What was needed now was practical action, and most likely it would be left for him to provide it. One could hardly leave a matter of such delicacy to those clodhopping mongrels the Musketeers!

His heart feeling lighter than it had been in many months Cardinal Richelieu strode from the palace, calling for his carriage and despatching a man to the garrison in search of Treville. Like it or not he and the Musketeers must work together, for the next few months at least.

He doubted those chivalric, honour-obsessed fools would appreciate the irony as much as he did. There would be humour to be found in their discomfort at least.

He couldn’t help wonder if Athos had forgiven his brother-at-arms the act of madness that had allowed both the Cardinal and his principal agent to escape what he would fondly call “justice” once and for all.

**Author's Note:**

> It seems to me the Cardinal actually holds a pretty strong hand as the series ends. He's suspicious of the Queen; and he knows the King's attack of alcoholic petulance can be blamed for setting his assassination plans into motion. Would Louis deny saying it if confronted? I really can't see it!


End file.
